I started the construction on this airplane in June 1990. It has gone between my
apartment and three homes as I have gotten married and been transfered from Ohio to Nevada
to Maryland. The plans call for .40 size ducted-fan units to be buried halfway
through the ducts in the nacelles. I realized that .40's would be too weak to power
this plane at 1/12 scale, or 108 inches long. Below are small samples of the plans from
which I built my aircraft. David Ross at Ross Hobbies owns the rights to the plans and now
manufacturers a kit based on these plans. Please see David's website at http://www.rosshobbies.com/ for more info on this
and other kits. If you can't contact David, please see this
page.

I also decided that I could not afford ducted fan units, so I built it originally to
take two OS .61 FSR's with 11x7 props on the front of the nacelles. I even got to
the point of having the engines installed and running, with the airframe covered with
black Monokote. Hint: Never install large sheets of black Monokote - it looks
horrible. The seems do not blend together like most Monokote colors. I didn't like
the way it turned out and hung up the airframe until we moved to Nevada.

One year for Christmas I received two OS .65 VR-DF's and Turbax III fan
units. My endless begging paid off! Finally I could give this plane what it deserved as a
power source. I removed all the Monokote (except on the rudders) and gutted the
nacelles. The nacelles were hollowed and 1/16 inch balsa was added as ducting.
I did not bury the engines in the middle of ducts as the plans called. This would
have placed the CG too far back. The front of each nacelle was extended to the
correct scale location to hold the fan units, and the two 16 ounce fuel tanks were moved
to the main body.

I swapped my Hirobo Shuttle ZXX carbon fiber helicopter for two complete
sets of OS 91 VR-DF's with Dynamax fans and tuned pipes. The Dynamax fans and OS 91
engines dropped ringht into the Blackbird with very few modifications. The tuned
pipes did require quite a bit of ducting change, but now the plane has almost 22 pounds of
static thrust.

The rudder connections required a bit of thought to keep the controls
internal while allowing for the ducting, but I succeeded in making no-slop connections
that are completely enclosed. The servo sits in the wing, on the inboard side of
each nacelle. Push-pull cables run from the servo around the inside of the nacelle
to a control horn attached to the rudder torque rod. The drawings for these rudder
connections is shown below.

1/4" thich balsa sheeting has been added to the body and nacelles. Rhom-Air
retracts have also been installed. All air connections and servo leads go to the
cockpit.

Same stage as above.

Same stage as above.

All balsa sheeting has been added to the top surface of the airframe.

Same stage as above.

Engine pods, engine mounts, and fuel tanks have been added for OS .61 FSR
engines. At this stage, ducted fan power was considered too expensive, and I had no
experience with ducted fans.

Same stage as above.

Nacelles have been hollowed, all construction is done. Awaiting fiberglass.

Same stage as above.

Same stage as above.

Blackbird and my Klingberg Wing x 2 next to each other for comparison.

Fiberglass and painting done. Construction complete.

Same stage as above.

Same stage as above.

Me and my Blackbird.

Markings have been added and the entire airframe has been painted with several coats
of gloss clear.

Same stage as above.

Camera bay markings added to bottom.

Camera bays.

Same stage as above.

Same stage as above.

The cockpit is closer to the single seat A-12 interceptor version, but please ignore
that (along with the marking inaccuracies).

Still shot from the taxi test video below.

Still shot from the taxi test video below.

Still shot from the taxi test video below.

Take a look at the picture above of the Blackbird and wing together. The SR-71 is
9 feet long and the wing has a span of 11 feet. The wing weighs 11 pounds complete
and has almost 20 square feet of surface area. That gives a wing loading of about 9
oz/ft^2. The Blackbird weighs 23 pounds at this stage and has about 14 square feet
of surface area. The final complete weight will be 30 pounds, which gives a wing
loading of about 34 oz/ft^2.

Update, September 2006: Flight was attempted during September 2006,
but my club's paved runway is only 150 feet long. The plane would begin to rotate
but could not get off the ground before running into the grass off the other end.
Several attempt were made with extra pushes and run-ups before the pavement.
It made a lot of noise and the nose came up, but did not quite fly. I need a
longer runway. Here is shot of my youngest son on the left with some friends before
the attempt.